Apprenticeship Partnership
by Freestyle 763
Summary: "Let me guess. This is the part where you give me the chance to surrender and turn myself in." "Make no mistake, I am not a hero. Heroes don't exist. Taking you in will get me what I want." Slade wants to destroy Jump City, the Teen Titans, and the World. He's willing to risk the whole world, more, and taking on another apprentice to see that his goals are complete.
1. Chapter 1

Teen Titans. I'm branching out and trying a Teen Titans story. Teen Titans was one of my favorite shows, a shame it had to end. Still, I've found that I had to write this and get it down, just so I have it down. Leave reviews, favorite, follow, if you want, and all of that-it all helps in some way. This rated M, for obvious reasons. Intense violence being one of them.

So...Thanks for reading and giving this a try!

* * *

Depowered discs of light were rings of ghostly gray floating in the gloom of darkness. The shimmering jewelscape of the Jump City skyline haloed the knife edged shadow of the throne. This was _his chamber_. Within the throne's shadow sat another shadow.

Deeper, darker, with form and impenetrable, an abyssal void so profound that it drained light from the room around it. And from the city. And the planet. And the galaxy. The shadow waited. It had told the boy it always would. It'd haunt his nightmares. Every dark corner. Every crevice. Every living moment. Every sleeping moment. He was looking forward to keeping his word.

However, the boy's presence isn't what he felt.

Nor was it his comrades' presences that he felt.

It wasn't his mortal enemies.

It was a lone presence.

The shadow felt the presence's fercoity, and it was good. The shadow felt the grim determination and malice to achieve anything by any means. To be totally ruthless. This, too, was good. As the presence settled to landing deck floors above him, the shadow focused mind into the far deeper night within one of the several pieces of sculpture that graced his office. An abstract twist of solid stone, so heavy that the floors had all been specially reinforced to bear its weight.

It was more than ten feet thick. The standard security scans undergone by all equipment, personal, and furniture to enter his room had shown nothing at all. If anyone had thought to use an advanced detector, however, they might have discovered that one smallish section of the sculpture massed slightly less than it should have. The sculpture was not entirely solid, and not all of it was stone.

Within a long and slim cavity around which the sculpture had been forged rested a device that had lain, waiting, in absolute darkness for decades. Waiting for night to fall on the Titans, or the city. The shadow felt the presence stride the vast echoic emptiness of the darkened, meter high halls outside. It could practically hear the cadence of the soft thud of sandals.

The darkness within the sculpture whispered of the shape and the feel and every intimate resonance of the device it cradled With a twist of its will. The shadow then triggered the device. The stone got warm. A small round spot, smaller than a circle, turned the color of blood.

Then fresh blood.

Then open flame.

Finally a spear of scarlet energy tore free, painting the room with the color of solar flares seen through the smoke of burning supernovas. The spear of energy lengthened, drawing with it out from the darkness the device, then the scarlet blade shrank away and the device slid itself within the softer darkness of an armored sleeve.

As shouts of power scattered beyond the office's outer doors, the shadow gestured and the disks of light ignited. Another shout of power burst open the inner door to his private office.

As one person stormed in, secluded by a shadows, a final flick of the shadow's will triggered a recording device concealed within the desk. Audio only. Another recording device, concealed within his throne. Video only. And, finally another array of devices which was concealed within the very walls around him. Video and audio.

"Why..." The shadow trailed off, bemused, but pleased at the same time. "What a pleasant surprise. Nobody has ever gotten this far, not even Robin..."

Four dozen bodyguard droids spread out in a shallow arc between the shadow and the presence, raising their talon-like hands. The presence maintained a respectful distance; there were even more bodyguards starting to file in, and the presence felt no particular urge to unleash just yet.

"Slade..." The presence spoke, voice deep. "I see it's true...You do wear a mask." The presence stalked toward him, passing through his screen of bodyguards without the slightest hint of reluctance.

Four dozen fell instantly, while hundreds fell soon after.

There was a glint, for just a passing second-that eclipsed the darkness.

"Let me guess. This is the part where you give me the chance to surrender and turn myself in."

"Make no mistake, I am not a hero. Heroes don't exist." The presence spoke, brusquely. "Taking you in will still get me what I want."

"I'll take option three." Slade lifted his hand, and the bodyguards moved to box the presence between them. "That's the one where I watch you die."

Another gesture, and the bodyguards in the ceiling hive came to life.

They uncoiled from their sockets heads pointed downward, with a rising chorus of whirring and buzzing and clicking that thickened until it sounded like they had just stumbled into a hornet's nest.

They began to drop free of the ceiling, first only a few, then many, like the opening drops of a humid day downpour; finally they fell in sheets that shook the reinforced cement of the room and left Slade's and the presence's ears ringing. Thousands of them landed and rolled to a standing; as many more stayed attached to the overhead hive, hanging upside down by their magnetic boots, weapons trained so that the presence stood at the focus of a dome of blasters.

Through it all, the presence didn't move.

"Perhaps I wasn't clear before. I am here for your head. There is no option three for you."

Slade shook his head. "Here just for the price on my head? Is it not for the thrill of it?"

"It's a hefty price. You're the number one criminal in the entire world." The presence said mildly. "Killing you will ensure I am set for the rest of my life."

"So, you will fight with the intent to murder me?"

The glint returned.

"Certainly."

Slade inclined his head, chuckling.

"Kill him."

Instantly the box of bodyguards around the presence filled with crackling staffs of fire and electric whipping faster than the human eye could see. Which was less troublesome than it might have been, for the room was filled with them.

Their attacks collided.

He collapsed as though he'd suddenly fainted, then brought his sword from his side to over his head and swung it while he turned his fall into a roll; that roll carried his blade through a crisp arc that severed the legs and heads of dozens of the bodyguards, and as the momentum brought the presence back to his feet, he kicked the crippled bodyguards to topple sideways into the path of the blade and sent them clanging to the floor in smoking, sparking pieces.

The remaining bodyguards pressed the attack, but more cautiously; their weapons were longer than his, and they struck from beyond the reach of his blade. He gave way before them, his defensive velocities keeping their crackling discharges at bay.

five dozen bodyguards, each with a double-ended weapon that generated an energy field, each with reflexes that operated near lightspeed, each with hypersophisticated heuristic combat algorithms that enabled it to learn from experience and adapt its tactics instantly to any situation, would certainly seem to be beyond the presences ability to defeat.

He was only a vessel, emptied of self. Sharpened by his skill and instincts, shaped by his wit, honed by his reflexes and guided by his clarity of mind, fought through him. He felt their destruction: it was somewhere above, around, and behind him, and only seconds away. He went to meet one with a backflipping leap that lifted him neatly to an empty droid socket in the ceiling hive.

They sprang after him but he was gone by the time they arrived, leaping higher into the maze of girders and cables and boat-sized cargo containers that was the control center's superstructure. Here, his instincts screamed, and the presence stopped, balancing on a rail, precariously right over a forklift, frowning at the oncoming killer droids that leapt from beam to beam below him like malevolent steel primates.

He spotted a cement beam within reach of his blade. His blade flicked out and the beam parted, fresh-cut edges billowing with smoke, and a great hulk of ship-sized cargo container that the beam had been supporting tore free of its other supports with shrieks of anguished metal and crashed down upon any and all of the mechanical bodyguards that couldn't get out of the way with the finality of a meteor strike.

 _That worked out rather well._

Only ten thousand to go.

Give or take.

An instant later the presence was hurtling through a storm of blaster fire as every able bodyguard in the room opened up on him at once. More came swinging their weapons. The presence fixed his entire attention on a thread that pulled him toward Slade.

Not where Slade was, but where Slade would be when he got there...

Leaping cement beam to cement beam girder to girder, cargo to cargo, slashing cables on which to swing through swarms of ricocheting scorching beams, blade flickering so fast it became a deflector shield that splattered those same beams in all directions, his presence alone became a weapon.

He spun and whirled through the room's superstructure, the blasts of cannons from bulkier bodyguards destroyed equipment and shattered girders and unleashed a torrent of red-hot debris that crashed to the ground below, crushing droids on all sides.

By the time the presence flipped down through the air to land on the battered ground once more, more than ninety five percent of the droids between him and Slade had been destroyed by their own not-so-friendly fire or by his own swift movements. He cut his way into the mob of remaining bodyguards as smoothly, his steady pace leaving behind a trail of smoking slices.

"Keep firing." Slade ordered smoothly, one visible eye hard as stone.

The bodyguards that flanked him strode forward.

"Blast him!"

The presence felt the massive cannon of a droid track him, and he felt it fire a bolt as powerful as a rocket, and he lunged into a leap that carried him just far enough toward the fringe of the explosive's blast radius so that instead of shattering his bones it merely gave him a very strong, very hot push, that sent him whirling over the rest of the droids that were tossed like ragdolls to smash into the wall-opposite of Slade..

A single slash of his blade amputated the shoulder cannon of droid bodyguard and continued into a spinning kick that brought his sandal heel to the point of the other droid's chin, snapping the droid's head back hard enough to sever its cervical sensor cables.

Blind and deaf, the power droid could only continue to obey its last order; it staggered in a wild circle, its convulsively firing cannon blasting random holes in droids and walls alike, until the presence deactivated it with a swift arc that burned through the droid's neck, sending its head flying, and only leaving a burning white hot stump behind. "

"You impress me." Slade said with bland politeness as though unexpectedly greeting, on the street, someone he privately disliked.

"My offer is still open."

The presence secluded its glint once more.

"Do you believe that I would surrender to you now?"

"I am still willing to take you alive. It'll be easier for the both of us. I won't need to run you through, at least." The presence's nod took in the smoking, sparking wreckage that filled the giant room.

"So far, no one has been hurt. You've hardly broken a sweat." Slade tilted his head so that he could squint down into the presence's face. "I have hundreds of millions of these commandos, and other models. You cannot defeat them all."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that." The presence looked cocky for a second, before he wiped the emotion away. "But, I don't have to defeat all of them."

"This is your chance to surrender, Syrus." Slade swept an armored hand around him. "You are in my grip; lay down your blade, or I will squeeze you...Until this entire place brims over with your blood."

"Surrender?" Syrus asked, starting to smirk. "I've got you alone now. If you want to do things the hard way...I am not opposed to that. Dead or alive, I am taking you in for the price on your head."

Slade stepped forward. One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

Seven.

Seven steps.

He stopped once he was exactly four feet away from Syrus.

"It seems you wield a katana, nodachi, or a ninhoto-judging from the length of your blade. You focus on lightning fast, and razor precise wrist movements and footwork. In short, you give the illusion of being surrounded by your blade, because of your cadence. I just have to keep my distance, and I should okay. Unless, you don't preserve your own life and attack with no regard for longevity."

Syrus clenched his teeth, wary and furious. _Such deduction skills..._

"If you think you can take my head, come and take it."

The tendons, muscles, ligaments, sinew, and bone powering Slade's arms let each of the two attack thrice in a single second; integrated by combat algorithms in the nerve armor, automatically adjusting for even the smallest fraction of a difference. Each of the thirty strikes per second came from a different angle with different speed, but they were all intense. They were an an unpredictably broken rhythm of crosses, jabs, chops, and elbows of which every single one could take Syrus's life.

Not one touched him. Countering thirty blows per second wasn't impossible.

Syrus's blade wove an intricate web of angles and curves, blindingly fast and swift, each motion of his blade subtly interfering with eight, nine, twelve, twenty of Slade's strikes, the rest shooting by him and smashing through pavement; his precise, minimal shifts of weight and stance slipping them by centimeters.

Snarling fury, Syrus ramped up the intensity and velocity of his attacks—thirty per second, forty—until finally, at ninety strokes per second, he overloaded Slade's defense. So, Slade used his defense to attack. A subtle shift in the angle of a single parry brought Slade's hand in contact not with the blade of the oncoming lightsaber, but with the hilt.

SLICE!

The blade winked out of existence a hairbreadth before it would have sliced through Slade's mask and deep into his forehead. Half the severed steel beam that that blade made contact with stumbled away, booming loudly as it followed its trajectory. Slade paused, eyes pulsing wide, then drawing narrow. He shifted hard to the side, sending the blade veering away.

Syrus easily drew it back, maintaining his stance.

They were deep in it now. Submerged in darkness, swallowed by it, he no longer existing as independent beings. They were a channel for darkness, and that darkness flowed both ways. Slade accepted the furious speed, the savage power, and the ferocious tempo of Syrus. He drew from the shadow's rage and power into his inmost center...

And let it fountain out again.

He reflected the fury upon its source as a mirror shows a reflection

They were an open channel, two halves of one superconducting loop completed by the other. They became a standing wave of battle that expanded into every cubic centimeter of the room. There was no scrap of metal nor shred of stone, nor slab of concrete that might not at any second disintegrate in flares of light or brutish strength. Light disks became brief shields, sliced into segments that whirled through the air, crushed into sparks of light that burned the air itself.

Stairs and railings became terrain to be climbed for advantage or overleapt in retreat. But there was still only the cycle of power, the endless loop, no wound taken on either side, not even the possibility of fatigue.

Impasse.

Stalemate.

It may go on forever.

Syrus could feel its end coming-he could see it.

But, so too, did Slade know it had to end soon.

He anticipated the ending.

Prepared for it.

The fighting was effortless. Both let their body handle it without the intervention of their mind. While Syrus's blade cut and slasj, while his feet slid and his weight shifted and his shoulders turned in precise curves of their own direction, his mind slid along the circuit of dark power, tracing it back to its limitless source. Prodding for a weakness. He found a knot of lines; he chose the largest fracture and followed it back...

It led him, astonishingly, to a woman standing frozen in the doorway-that was more like a huge opening at this point in time. Her pointed blue-purple eyes and blonde hair were like lightning and thunder.

Neither of the men engaged in battled had need to look; the presence was familiar.

They knew she'd arrive sooner or later.

Syrus disengaged from Slade and leapt meters away; he slashed away the wall with a single flourish.

"Master!"

"Stay back, Terra!" Slade ordered.

"But-"

"That is an order!" Slade rumbled.

Syrus's instant distraction cost him: a dark surge of power nearly blew him right out of the gap he had just cut. Only a hasty push off of his feet, altered his path enough that he slammed into a section of cement instead of plunging half a kilometer from the ledge three floors down. He bounced off another wall and cleared his head, but a flying boulder nearly decapitated him.

He barely avoided the next hailstorm of tonnage, and could only watch in mild shock as part of the entire building began to crumble to dust.

That girl was dangerous.

Syrus set his eyes on her.

"Terra!" Slade snapped, whirling on the blonde. "I said to stay back and not to interfere!"

"But, I can help!"

"Disobey my orders and you'll suffer the consequences."

Terra stepped back, looking concerned.

Slade could feel the end of this battle approaching, and so could the blur of force he faced. Syrus became a pulsar of aggression. Easily, almost effortlessly, Slade turned the shadow's rage into a weapon. He angled the battle to bring them both out onto the ledge. Out in the wind. Out with the lightning. Out on a rainslicked ledge above a thousand miles drop. Out where the shadow's rage gave it power.

Out where Slade could flick his arm in one precise arc and chip at the sword.

The rest of the blade was clasped by iron fingers, but it still managed to pierce into his chest armor. Now the shadow was only Syrus. Slade tightened his grip on the sword, unflinching as the blade began to pull into and through his skin, drawing blood. His other wrist held fast onto the wrist which held the sword, shaking, straining, Slade held it bay.

"How about a fourth option?" Slade asked evenly, staring past the blade, "Join me and become my apprentice."

"You must be out of your mind." Syrus hissed, struggling to drive his sword through Slade's chest.

"I know an opportunity when I see one. Besides, I know you have another ability that you haven't used, yet. I've been holding back as well, truth be told. I'm always looking for young, driven, and determined warriors that I can shape and mold into the perfect weapon." Slade shifted his footing, the nimble action allowing him to press the blade up-at the cost of cutting into his hand even more, and shove it aside along with Syrus.

He distanced himself, moving towards Terra who immediately put up a shield of earthen defense around the two of them.

"The idea of being under your control just rubs me the wrong way, even if your offer does catch my interest. I don't want you trying to make me an apprentice like that chick over there. I'm not going to follow your orders, and you're not going to order me around like some lackey." Syrus remarked.

'You're not exactly saying no." Slade commented.

"I will not be under you. You will not be my boss or boss me around." Syrus didn't relax, he eased subtly as he sheathed his blade, shrouding the area in darkness once more.

Silence passed between them, until lightning struck.

"Our real partnership has yet to begin."

Syrus hissed, shifting back so he was a little further away from the man. No wonder his head was worth so much money, just his presence was something akin to fearsome and overwhelming. "I have a question. What are your goals?"

Slade's lone visible eye pulsed. "Destroy the Teen Titans. Destroy Jump City. Destroy or rule the world. To simply wreak havoc and nothing more. I have my own reasons for wanting to do this. I will not tell you or speak of them, because they don't matter."

"The Teen Titans?" Syrus muttered.

"Surely you've heard of them."

"Who hasn't..." Syrus looked annoyed, his eyes narrowing to slits. "You have a dangerous ideology. It'd be better keeping you at an arm's length."

"Seems we've found a mutual ground."

Facing off against Slade...

No, being in the man's focus was like being tangled in a web.

"As long as I'm getting what I want out of this...You can call this a partnership, apprenticeship, or whatever you want."

Lightning struck again, illuminating everything.

"Very well, we'll move to another one of my bases." Slade clenched his fists, shaking with anticipation.

 _What will you do now, Robin?_


	2. Chapter 2

The trip to Slade's next base was quietly tense. Neither of the trio tried making conversation, but they weren't exactly chatty for starters. Terra may have entertained the thought, but considering how stoic both of these men were, she just stayed quiet. The discomfort only increased when they arrived at the base.

Slade had been here so often that he didn't even really see it, most times: the deep red hue with orange and yellow that matched the icy walls, the long, cold railings, the huge arcs of screens that surrounded them, but remained off-these were all so familiar that they were usually almost invisible, but today...Today, with another recruit, everything looked different.

New.

Rotating ten pronged sprockets of steel were rings of gray floating in the gloom of the fire. The deathly hue of red and orange, haloed the edged shadow of the seat near the center of the room.

Brighter, yet darker than the other base, this base was something akin to madness and obsession. Gears larger than trucks spun twisted, bolts and nuts creaked off each other, and pistons fired sporadically releasing steam that'd melt skin right off bone.

Some indefinable gloom shrouded everything, as though the clear screens that focused the distant static into figures, had somehow been damaged, or smudged with the red haze of steam that still shrouded everything.

The light of Slade's disks of light seemed brighter than usual, almost harsh, but somehow that only deepened the discovered now an odd, accidental echo of memory, a new harmonic resonance inside his head, when he looked at walls.

This place reminded him of a far away place. And it struck him as unaccountably sinister that the steam hissing and ghastly armor worn by Slade were the exact color and sound of a distant past.

Slade himself stood at the top of a platform, in front of his bulbous, wide chair, gazing out upon his two began echoing along with the other noises of machinery. Slade shifted in front of his chair. He felt the Syrus's ferocity-that look in his sharp, dark eyes. He could feel the malice bristling, like the thick mane that rested atop his head.

To be totally ruthless.

Slade focused his mind into one of the shadows, several pieces of sculpture that stood mighty around his of solid stone, so heavy that the floors had all been specially reinforced to bear its weight. It was more than eighty feet thick. The standard security scans undergone by all equipment, personal, and furniture to enter this base didn't show anything.

Like the sculptures in the last base, this one was not entirely solid, and not all of it was stone.

Within a slim cavity around which the sculpture had been forged rested a device, waiting, in absolute darkness. Waiting for night to fall on the Titans, or the city.

The darkness within the sculpture whispered of the shape and the feel and every intimate resonance of the device it cradled With a twist of its will. Slade took hold of its bright hilt-colored gold, and then triggered the device. The stone got warm.

A small round spot, smaller than a circle, turned the color of blood and it sprayed out like a geyser.

It focused into a lancing spear, boasting, painting the room with the color of solar flares.

The spear of energy lengthened, drawing with it, the slab of stone, which it easily sliced through. The scarlet blade hissed, humming as it slid itself within the softer darkness of its base, near the edge of Slade's hand.

"Syrus...Terra. You both look alarmed." Slade could see both of their reflections in the curve of dark screens of his monitors; Syrus had not moved. Terra took a ginger two steps back, eyes hovering on the sliced slab of cement.

"Oh, this..."Slade walked towards them, body language giving nothing away. The endless flares of red and orange stretched all around him. Consuming. Overwhelming. Here and there, pistons screamed and clanged, the remains of shattered buildings still smoldered within sprockets. In the near distance, just outside, the vast dome of Jump City squatted like a gigantic, flickering mushroom sprung from the concrete plain.

Farther, in the bright haze, was Titans Tower.

"There's no need to be alarmed." Slade's voice was deceptively soft, stony with little emotion. "This weapon is still a prototype, and I have a lot of adjustments that still need to be made. It is a fearsome weapon, but it needs improvements..."Slade's voice trailed away.

Gently, Syrus narrowed his eyes in on Slade, and a frown fleeted over his face.

"It is a weapon that will destroy the Teen Titans, right?" Syrus asked.

Slade's body language gave nothing away, he could have been carved right out of stone.

"It's a possibility..."Slade mused.

Maybe if he could separate the Teen Titans, and best them in one on one combat, this prototype could slay them all-easily enough. However, the Teen Titans were never alone, they were always together-and together, they were nearly unbeatable. After all, Robin could never best him...But, with his friends by his side, they could best him.

"Then tell me, what is the point of it?" Syrus asked slowly, growing annoyed. "If it's not capable of destroying them, then why bother even constructing it in the first place? I didn't come here to play games, Slade. I'm not this little girl."

Terra went still for a moment, then she clenched her teeth, and very slowly lifted her hand. "Don't talk down on me."

A segment of rocks formed around her-all of them the size of buses.

"You can't even control your powers." Syrus finished.

Terra flexed her hand.

"Terra, that's enough. You do need more training, and you are too emotional." Slade remarked, voice growing cold as ice. "I understand you have concerns...You are a man of action, Syrus. You're a bounty hunter, after all. A mercenary. But, you must learn the value of patience."

"Even so-"

"How can you hope to defeat the Teen Titans if you don't even know where to start? Their strengths and weaknesses, individually. Their coordination and teamwork. You don't even know your enemy, Syrus."

"All is useless before brute force." Syrus didn't want to get into this with Slade.

He certainly didn't want to start whining about bored or inactive like some preadolescent child learning Martial Arts, or like a child who hadn't been chosen for a kickball team.

"You are right about that, it's why Terra is being shaped into my gem. The Teen Titans can't control her."

"Well..." Terra looked down.

"You know them?" Syrus asked, eyes going wide for a second.

"I met them a while ago..." Terra replied, grimacing with discomfort and conflict. "But, you are right...Master."

"I know. I know. That is precisely the point. You are not like them. You are stronger. Selfish. You don't belong with them. If they cannot control you now, what will happen once you master your powers? You may become more powerful than all of them together. That is why they keep you down. That is why they wanted you to join them. They fear your power. They fear you."

Terra shifted away from Slade

This had struck a little close to the bone.

"I..."

"That is why I am helping you master your power. You don't want friends. You don't have friends. You never did, Terra. You've always been on the run, you run and run, but you will always hurt those closest to you...You only care about controlling your power and power, and that suits me fine." Slade's eyes squinted.

Terra kept her eyes trained on the ground, daring not to meet Slade's iron gaze.

"I have brought you both here today, because I have fears of my own." Slade turned, waiting, until both Terra and Syrus met his eye.

"I am coming to fear that these other villains will begin to get in our way."

"What...Do you mean?" Terra questioned, pausing halfway through. "Aren't we all on the same team?"

"Hardly." Syrus snorted.

"Listen. There can never be a lot of villains. There should only be two. A Master and an apprentice. One to embody the power and the other to crave it. True power can come only to those who embrace it. There can be no compromise. Mercy, compassion, loyalty: all these things will prevent you from claiming what is rightfully yours. Those who chase power must cast aside these conceits. Those who do not-those who try to walk the path of moderation-will fail, dragged down by their own weakness. Those who accept power must also accept the challenge of holding onto it..."Slade paused.

"Betrayal. Enmity. Rivalry. Strife. This is our greatest strength. It culls the weak. Yet this rivalry can also be our greatest weakness. The strong must be careful lest they be overwhelmed by the ambitions of those beneath them working in concert. Say for example the whole Hive Academy were to attack. There is also the constant strife among ourselves...For example, if I were to a move, but Mad Mod got in my way, and then decided to attack me. In time the heroes will unite their strength and overthrow evil. It is inevitable."

A hiss of steam shot across the room, and Slade grabbed a remote from his pocket, finger hovering over the button.

"You see, Syrus. You must learn the value of patience. Terra is rather close with the Teen Titans, and I intend to send her on the inside in due time. But, in the mean time..."

The room came alive with sound, noise, and picture. Who's Slade? Echoed like a demented mantra. Terra looked shocked, but Syrus nearly stumbled back in his surprise. There had to be thousands upon thousands of hours of footage here. Of the Teen Titans as a whole, and the five members that made it up. There was an entire wall of screens dedicated to Robin-where the demented mantra was coming from that didn't bother Slade the slightest.

"Patience, Syrus...Soon, you will meet the Titans. I have an assignment for you, one that I think you'll enjoy."

"What about the girl?" Syrus jabbed a thumb in Terra's direction.

"I am still training her...Her powers are still too wild, this requires more delicacy and subtlety. I've given you devices to help those two things along..." Slade trailed off, smiling beneath his mask as an idea came to mind.

Syrus took that at face value, nodding just barely.

"Where am I off to, then?"

"Here. Simple observation."

* * *

Alone in his room, Robin wrestled with his dragon. He was losing. He paced his room in blind arcs, stumbling among the chairs, dodging pieces of paper holding information and even dodged the wall a few times, coming too close.

Physical pain he could have handled even without his mental skills; he'd always been tough. At a young age he'd been able to execute the most dangerous of stunts along with his biological parents during their circus performance. However, this was different. Nothing had prepared him for this. He wanted to rip open his chest with his bare hands and claw out his heart.

He wanted to crack his skull open...

He wanted to crack Slade's head open and examine it...

"Slade, who are you?"

The question started as a low moan but grew to a howl he could no longer lock behind his teeth.

"Who are you Slade? Why do you hide behind that mask? Why do you toy with me?" He knew the answer: Slade enjoyed it. The man was a psycho, the worst kind of person.

Everything was a game to him...Everything was a test, some way to get a read on him, to gauge him, to know him on a deep and intimate level. To be closer than blood but shallower than water. He didn't care what he had to do. He didn't care how many plans he had to formulate and would fail. He'd stop Slade at any cost, even his own life. Of all the villains he'd taken down, Slade was the worst.

His despair and angst somehow became an invisible hand, stretching out, a hand that found him, close, yet so far away, alone in in the dark, a hand that felt the spikes sleek coils of his hair, a hand that tightened around his throat, and hand that...

Robin struggled. And, now he could see Slade. He could feel his presence. As though they shared a strange kinship, He felt his airway closing more and more, the struggle for air went from frantic to desperate.

He punched and kicked, punched and kicked, but Slade didn't budge.

"What's the matter Robin? Not escaping my grasp as easily as you thought you would?" Slade asked, as though they were strolling down the street, sharing coffee.

Robin slammed his forearm atop Slade's wrist, only to seethe in pain-it felt like he struck sold steel. He managed to speak. "I never said it'd be easy. I'm still going to take you down!"

"Is that right? Your friends aren't with you, and you know...Alone, you'll never be able to defeat me. I will always be in the back of your mind, in the shadows, when you doubt, and when you fear, and when you brood-that is me. That is what I do best. Victory and defeat mean nothing."

"You're a psycho!"

"I'm the thing that you fear the most, Robin!"

Robin had no answer for him. The dragon, on the other hand, did. Everyone and everything fears. Animals, insects, bugs, humans, everything that lives, breathes, and eats, and that can feel experiences fear. He wasn't exempt from fear or terror. Exempt from doubt or despair. He was human, a mortal, and he could be killed. He did fear.

There was an answer.

Robin strained, he pressed his hands forward, clawing. He clawed at the mask like a mad beast. He didn't care if Slade was a robot or not, or if nothing lay behind the mask. This was survival.

Slade howled. His agony exploded.

Robin croaked, Slade's fingers-lodged against his windpipe, sent a pulse of terror through him.

He fought.

"I'm not afraid of you, Slade!"

"Oh?"

"I'm not! I don't fear you! I'll bring you down, for good, mark my words! Nothing will ever change between us!"

"YOU'RE AFRAID OF YOURSELF!"

Robin's mouth gaped open, a silent scream erupting from there within. The mask tore away, the darkness that shrouded the shadow evaporated, and the face he seen was...

"Surprised to see me, Robin?"

He flailed, screaming, struggling to move.

He struggled to breathe.

He seen himself killing his friends-Cyborg, Beast Boy, Raven, and...

Starfire.

"We're similar, right down to the core."

"I'm nothing like you!"

But-staring at him wasn't Slade, it was...

"You're not me! I'm not you!"

RING!

Papers-neatly stacked and folded, reports, all filed alphabetically, records and documents, all organized to the decimal were all brushed aside. The storm of paper could only be described as a paper twister. Amidst the storm of paper, Robin was totally upright, gasping, struggling to gather his bearings. He looked from left to right, recognizing his room.

He felt his neck, sucking in a deep breath...

No fingers, no Slade.

He turned, hearing his door open.

Cyborg stood grimly. "It's Slade and Cinderblock, they're both attacking Perez Bank."

Robin hardened his eyes, clearing the haze away from his mind.

"Let's go."

* * *

Cinderblock wasn't surprised in the least by the intervention. He'd sensed their presences from several hundred meters away, just as he had surely caught their scent and stalked them from some great distance.

They met his charge with fierce efficiency.

Ducking under the first swiping hook, Beast Boy shifted into a tiger, carving a deep gash along Cinderblock's left leg. He flourished wildly, roaring. When Cinderblock reared back to bellow, he sliced another deep groove in his belly. Cinderblock didn't fall right away. He was far too massive to be felled by such a pair of wounds.

Instead the attacks drove him into a rage. He grabbed Beast Boy by the neck, and smashed him into the ground.

Not at all nimble, Cinderblock didn't twist or dodge, nor leap over one attack, then dropping to the ground to roll beneath another. He moved so slow, but with such force that his speed didn't matter. Raven and Starfire pelted him with bolts of energy and slammed chunks of cement the size of trucks into him, and Robin fired his own spiraling explosives, but, through it all, Cinderblock continued to charge.

Cyborg was next, and with each evasion he struck another blow, whittling away at the mountain. He punched and kicked, grabbing Cinderblock by the waist and hefting him up into a suplex. Then Cinderblock went on the attack. He drove Cyborg back with two furious punches, forcing the younger man into a retreat before his heel hit the wall. Cinderblock continued to press, one hand grasping out as if to palm Cyborg like a football, and drove him through the wall, watching his body bounce off the large safe in their new battlefield.

"Okay, now I'm mad..." Cyborg pushed himself up to his feet, teeth clenched. He cracked his neck, clenching his fists.

"None of our attacks are having an effect. We need to take him off of his feet."

"Easy for you to say, you didn't get smashed into the ground." Beast Boy remarked, nursing his ribs.

"Cyborg, can you keep him busy?"

"I'll put him down." Cyborg said with finality.

Robin smirked. "Beast Boy, help him. Starefire and Raven, you'll both team up. When he drops his guard, I want one, or both of you, to slam something into his legs. I'll finish him after that. Everybody good with this?"

"Wonderful!" Starfire clapped, pleased.

Cyborg and Beast Boy drove Cinderblock into back a frenzy, forcing the massive brute into a forward charge, despite taking damage. Cyborg flipped back and out through the door into the hall beyond, but Cinderblock was relentless in his pursuit, leaping forward and coming within a centimeter of landing a crippling blow to his leg.

His strike was turned aside at the last second.

Beast Boy shifted into a T-Rex maw open, closed inexorably over half of Cinderblock's body.

Cinderblock became desperate. Leaping, spinning, thrashing, swinging: he was wild and reckless in his retreat, seeking now only to escape the maw that tried to consume him in darkness. But, he couldn't shift like Beast Boy, and with a mere thought, on a subconscious level, Beast Boy shifted again-body extending and expanding with fins.

Recognizing what was happening, Raven blew open the heavy door of a side room with her mental prowess, grabbed Beast Boy, and threw him into the room with little ceremony. Raven knew there was no other way, this is where they had to make their stand.

Beast Boy gagged-a strange sound, like a belching bellow.

Cinderblock, furious, heaved him up with all of his strength, and slammed him through two walls close by. He stood in the center of the empty chamber, panting heavily, stooped ever so slightly, his head bowed. He looked up when a chunk of debris caught his eye, but it was already too late. Raven's attack met its mark, cracking off Cinderblock's chin like thunder.

"You should have hit somewhere else." Robin said.

There was less than five meters between them, but it was just enough space for Robin to give his bo staff a quick twist. The long handle separated in the middle, and suddenly he was armed with a pair of shorter staffs, one in each hand.

The battle was rejoined, but now it was Bane who was in full retreat. Without proper martial training, even his enormous strength was unable to anticipate the unfamiliar sequences of the Titan's teamwork. His mind was flooded with a million options of what his opponents might attempt, and he had experience to draw on to eliminate any of them.

But, they were smaller, and faster...

Overwhelmed, he staggered back, floundering with the desperation of a drowning man.

Within the first few passes Starfire knew she couldn't win. Cinderblock was a mass of fury and power. Speed, agility, the ability to fly-these were the few things that separated her from her foe. Cinderblock's strength was great, his grit was admirable. Her bolts of energy staggered him, made him step back, even forced him to stumble, but he remained standing.

"Cyborg!"

Cyborg bore down, unrelenting in his pressure. He seemed to wield ten arms rather than two: he attacked with a peculiar rhythm designed to keep his foe off balance, coming in with one fist high, the other fist low, striking from opposite sides at odd and opposing angles. Kidneys and cheeks. Skull and liver. Cinderblock had no option but to fall back.

"Raven!"

Cinderblock focused on the blue cloaked figure. He roared, gouging his fingers into a cement pillar, and ripped it out with a mighty yell. He turned and twisted it, starting to gather momentum. was fighting now with a single purpose: somehow escaping. He knew Raven couldn't hope to stop this attack. The cement pillar was too long and massive, even if she did manage to dodge, she'd at least walk away with a fractured bone.

Cinderblock seemed to flounder-a piece of steel, about twelve feet in length, three feet wide, and several inches thick-slammed right into his ankles. The sheer speed and momentum of the attack caught him by surprise, and with growing rage, he knew his end was near.

Starfire flung Robin like a hapless ragdoll-though he was anything but. Starfire's strength was just that great. Robin flipped and corkscrewed, his aerial awareness, honed, developed, and refined from years of training and battle, were never more prevalent than they were now. Taking out Cinderblock meant getting to Slade, and Robin had no hesitation.

The tip of his boot struck Cinderblock's chin, hefting the big man from his feet and hurdling towards the next wall-remarkably unbroken in the carnage.

"BB, let's do this!"

Cyborg charged like a rabid bull, slamming his shoulder deep into Cinderblock's side-just as Beast Boy shifted into a Triceratops, and with three mighty steps, his meaty tail swept through the air, causing shockwaves, and send Cinderblock far into the next side of Perez Bank.

Robin was upon him in a heartbeat. "Slade where is he?"

Just then-deep within the shadows of the room, a light bloomed. It took shape, and Robin nearly lost his grip on his rage as he seen Slade-blue and holographic, striding towards him.

"Robin."

"Check it out, he's a hologram." Beast Boy pointed at Slade.

Raven shook her head, tempted to whack him. "Maybe he's close by-"

"Don't bother trying to look for me...I am in a place none of you can find, even you, Robin...Though I will say I am impressed with your development."

Robin felt the dragon inside of him lash out. He gnarled his teeth and bit down a curse. "What were you planning? Trying to take the computer chips that are here?"

Slade's hologram fizzled for a moment, his expression said nothing. "Don't you already know, Robin?"

Starfire rested a hand on Robin's shoulder, hoping, hoping that it brought him out of his emotional stupor.

"Start talking, now!"

Slade didn't look impressed. "It doesn't matter. It's what I do best...We'll meet again, soon. Sooner than you, and your friends, may think."

Robin nor Raven missed how Slade put an emphasis on 'friends'.

It was a dark, disturbing foreboding.

The hologram faded away, and like every other time, every time since he encountered Slade, Robin was left with nothing.

"So, who wants tofu pizza?" Beast Boy asked, already thinking of the next meal.

"That is disgusting." Cyborg remarked.

"I like my pizza with the mint frosting. Come Robin." Starfire held out a hand to him. "We are victorious, let us celebrate."

Robin smiled, and nodded, but when no one was looking at him.

His smile dropped.

 _Slade..._


End file.
